“Perry,” I quietly breathed.
Matt nodded.
“And George is…”
“Long dead,” said Matt quietly. “He took his own life thirty years ago, the same week his wife passed of old age.”
To my knowledge Perry was in his late forties. He had salt and pepper gray hair, wrinkles, and crow’s feet. It didn’t make any logical sense to what Matt was saying. Matt himself was very young, in his mid-twenties. Participating in the army with a middle-aged man’s grandfather couldn’t possibly be true. I had another question, one that I was actually afraid of knowing.
“How old are you?”
“Want to venture a guess?” He grinned. I hesitantly shook my head, and it caused him to snort. “I was twenty-five in 1945.”
My brain did the calculations fairly quickly. Although I wasn’t prepared for what those calculations revealed. “That would make you short of a hundred.”
Matt gave a slow nod. “Celebrated my ninety-ninth birthday on Halloween.”
My mind was spinning. “So the gathering, everyone on the roof…?”
“My unofficial party,” said Matt coolly.
There was so much I needed to ask. I wanted to know all about the guys in our department. I wanted to know more about Perry, why he changed into a monster later in life, why he was going along with this. I wanted to know all the hows and whys of everything, but most of all, I wanted to know which of the werewolves was the one Simon and I saw that one night. I wanted to know who it was that was leaving the dead animals and who killed Mr. Thompson. I wanted to know anything and everything at that moment. But a sharp knocking at the door cut off Matt’s explanation. He didn’t seem startled by the knock as I was. Matt took a low breath as he looked at me.
“Shall we continue this later?”
I nodded eagerly.
“Darren’s here,” said Matt before heading to the door to unlock it. No one had said anything as they knocked, so it was surprising Matt knew who it was. As Darren entered the room and explained that Perry sent him in here to help finish Glacier, all I could think of was Matt’s excellent hearing that he had known who it was behind the door without having seen Darren beforehand.
CHAPTER 14
The rest of the day I was finding myself alternating between being eager to talk to Matt again while also terrified of being at work. I was out of my element being in the midst of beings that were supernatural. Instantly, all of my childhood notions regarding fact and fiction were blurred; things were no longer as they seemed. Even though at one time I probably would have been fascinated that monsters from stories were real, I couldn’t find myself anything but terrified.
I was far too quiet after speaking with Matt, unable to make conversation with Darren or Perry when the latter had come in to check how the room was coming along. Part of me felt Perry must have known I was now in on the little secret, for he looked at me expectantly. Perry never said anything; he only watched me, as if he were trying to gauge my reaction.
I couldn’t say anything to him. I had no idea what to say.
“Are you okay?” Darren finally asked a few hours later. I was only two hours from going home, so close yet so far.
It was a simple question that I didn’t have an answer for. I was most definitely not okay, but I didn’t know how to phrase it.
“How much do you know about the boy band?”
“Um…”
I shook my head. It was dumb to refer to the guys in my department as my silent nickname for them. In the comforts of my own head, I felt they resembled a boy band with their too-cool-to-care attitude. I decided to try again. I had to be careful not to say this name in front of the boys. “How much do you know about the guys we work with?”
Darren had to be in on it. He had to be one of them. How was it possible that he worked here in the winter but he had no idea that he was with a pack of werewolves? Darren cocked a brow before pushing some of his dark hair out of his eyes. “Not that much, just what I observe when I’m around them. They’re kind of lazy and stupid in my opinion. Er, why?”
I covered my face with both hands. He wasn’t in on this. That was why the guys in my department avoided him as well. They didn’t want to converse with someone who wasn’t among them. No part of me felt I could make it through the next two hours. I felt like I was losing my mind trying to wrap my head around things. Without another word, I left the room, leaving a perplexed Darren in my wake.
I clocked out immediately after I left Darren. I didn’t inform anyone I was leaving, either. Matt saw me exit the building, but he didn’t try to stop me. As unprofessional as it was, I didn’t inform Perry that I had left work until I was all the way home in the safety of my house. After locking my front door behind me, I sent a hasty text with a lame excuse that I had come down with the stomach flu and had been vomiting. Perry didn’t chastise me for not informing him while at work. A mere minute after I sent my text, he responded that he hoped I recovered soon. He even offered me to take the day off tomorrow.
If he weren’t secretly a supernatural creature who was a bit misogynistic in regards to having a female employee, he would be a really great manager to work with.
Simon came bounding down the stairs moments after I dropped my bag on the counter. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I chastised.
“Aren’t you?”
He had a point I couldn’t argue. I settled myself down at the table. “I can’t go back there.”
Simon frowned as he slipped into a seat across the table. “Why not?”
I explained all about the contract Perry had written up. How he knew about the guys as well as my being legally bound not to say anything. I tried not explaining about Matt, leaving out all that I could without having to think or talk about him.
“You can’t really be legally bound not to say your coworkers are werewolves,” scoffed Simon.
“I just can’t go back there. This is too much to deal with.”
“But how are we going to prove that the werewolf—”
“What is there to prove?” I loudly snarled, startling Simon with my sudden tenacity. “We discovered all of my coworkers are friggen werewolves. One of them is leaving dead animals on our doorstep, and the same one probably killed Mr. Thompson. What kind of horrible person are you if you force me to go back to that hotel and work with them?!”
I had never before screamed at my brother in such a way. It only showcased how clearly stressed out I was by the situation.
Simon nodded and quietly agreed with me, thankfully not pushing the issue further. Not long after that, I sent a polite text message to Perry saying I was quitting my job. I didn’t give an explanation as to why.
Perry didn’t reply, which made me believe he hadn’t taken kindly to my text. I couldn’t find myself caring. No part of me wanted to go back.
That night, I made round steak with a French onion soup topping. I went out of my way to make homemade mashed potatoes because it was a longer process that got me to think about the food and not about what was going on in life. At the end of the meal when cleaning the kitchen, I saved leftovers for Miranda. She wasn’t home yet, but that wasn’t surprising. She had been staying later at the office to finish up some type of project her company was working on. I then spent some time doing internet searches in different jobs since I was now technically unemployed.